Midnight and Dawn
by MidKnight Rider
Summary: The adventures of Cameron and Vala
1. Chapter 1

**Midnight and Dawn**

**This will be the adventures of Cameron Mitchell and Vala Mal Doran. As a Farscape fan, I simply can't see them not being together. The chemistry between Ben Browder and Claudia Black demands that they be together; and the future I envision for the Stargate Program demands Mitchell and Vala as a combined force for the galaxy to reckon with. **

**Like Moonlight and Steel, Midnight and Dawn will run parallel to Sunshine and Shadow and be part of the Daniel/Jillian 'verse. It isn't necessary to read Sunshine and Shadow as the overlap between the two series should be minimal. Midnight and Dawn starts in the 'middle' – with an adventure gone wrong at the beginning of season 10. Don't worry, we'll get to it and finish it later. ;-)**

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**SGC, 2006**

Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell stared at the amoeba-shaped blotch on the concrete floor of the infirmary for what he thought was an eternity. When he looked back up the big hand on the clock had moved exactly three minutes.

Holding back a sigh that would just make his chest hurt, he looked back at the stain. Was it something recent? Blood? Or was it something that had gotten into the concrete when it had been poured?

His thoughts were in turmoil and it was hard to focus. The stain was distracting him from the burning rage that was smoldering inside. He was raging at whoever had set the booby-trap. He was raging at the long dead Qetesh and the equally deceased Jolinar. He raged at himself for all the mistakes he'd made, especially this recent one that had almost cost a lot of people so dearly.

Mostly he raged at himself for hesitating. How much time had he lost in that brief moment of doubt? He'd heard the click of something on the wall opening. He knew they were trapped in if there was cross fire. But some young, naïve newbie part of him had questioned, had wavered. Just for a moment.

The darts unleashed from the wall of the Temple had stung like hell. Small but persistent, sticking to skin and clothes. Annoying to the men. He'd felt pain but not more than from serious bee stings.

Daniel had cursed in Mandarin. Teal'c had growled. Mitchell had used every Sodan swear word he'd ever heard.

The women had gone mad, screaming. The tiny darts that struck began to burn their skin in the kind of blisters that came from being staked out in the sun for days. Vala lost it instantly, shrieking Cameron's name and begging him to make it stop. Sam's military training had served her for a very short time. She didn't start making any serious noise until Daniel and Teal'c were already in motion, tearing clothes off down to her military issue underwear and throwing her into the pleasantly sparkling fountain that had greeted them. Its gentle, trickling rhythm had been one of the things that had lulled him into a false sense of security.

He'd done the same thing to Vala – stripped her, plunged her into the water, knocking out darts with the palms of his bare hands.

The interior of the Temple had been such a sweet looking place. South American, exotic, with fountains down the center and water spilling from open-mouth faces all along the walls. Daniel had hoped it might lead to another crystal skull and some way to contact his long-silent grandfather; and the hopefully friendly and powerful allies that might render aid against the Ori. He had been wired during the slide show of MALP footage and his own images. He remembered Daniel effortlessly rattling off,

"It appears to be a temple devoted to Chalchiuhtlicue, she of the green skirt, an Aztec water goddess also known as Matlalcueye, owner of the green skirt. She was the wife and sister of the rain god, Tlaloc. She was the mother of Tecciztecatl, an Aztec moon god."

When he had wound down Mitchell had stared at him blankly for a moment and then said, "You rehearse this stuff, don't you?"

The look Daniel had returned was unreadable. Mitchell never had any idea when Daniel was being serious and when he was just being an arrogant bastard. Didn't matter. The guy had earned the right be whatever kind of bastard he wanted to be.

So they had gathered in the Gate Room to do some simple recon of PM4-3513, looking for allies in a sunlit, water-drenched Temple.

They hadn't been expecting an ambush. In 20/20 hindsight it was idiocy. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." The giant aliens of P7X-377 had been enemies of the Goa'uld. The trap they had set at their Stargate was designed to target only those with a distinctive marker in their blood – the mark of a Goa'uld host.

They had initially believed Vala and Sam had been attacked more viciously because they were women. But that wasn't the case. The poison darts had reacted to the naquadah both women were blessed/cursed with after being hosts.

Mitchell was still cursing the micro-second of hesitation. He should have grabbed Vala, thrown her on the ground, covered her somehow even if she would have blistered his ears for it afterwards.

He'd had no way of knowing of course; and the whole thing had happened in a kind of petrified, slow-motion.

Now they were here, back at the SGC. Back home. But in the infirmary. He was seated between the two women he had failed, wondering when they would wake up, how much pain they were in, willing them to live and wondering if General Jonathan J. O'Neill was going to murder him for almost losing them.

Especially one of them.

The other one – well he had his own reasons for the guilt he felt over that one.

His eyes drifted about again before coming to rest once more on the mark on the floor.

It must be a stain. The floor in the infirmary would certainly be spotlessly clean.

He'd lived so much of his life without regrets, learning from his mistakes. Even his frequent fuck-ups weren't something he really ever regretted. He had never done anything from malice or intent to harm. Usually the only person he'd ever hurt had been himself. Lessons, more learned from his mistakes than from any time he had ever been successful.

Now there was a whole lot to regret. All tied to the woman whose blood was still drying on his clothes and whose screams were still echoing in his head. She wasn't even a member of the team, not yet and might never be. Cam had invited her to come with them for the experience. A simple recon, no big deal.

He looked at her very still form beneath the green sheets. She was being treated for severe burns, covered in bandages.

There was too much still unsaid between them, between two people shaped by circumstances that could not be any more different, both dangerous, deadly if needed, loyal now to the SGC as well as to each other.

And each vehemently denying in a stubbornly independent way that they had any loyalties to each other at all; silently declaring themselves invulnerable to the normal course of human wants, needs, desires and the certainty of the heart.

And knowing perfectly well how much they needed each other.

They had been sparring since the first day. The trajectory of their relationship set. Time needed for her to learn to trust, to become someone he could trust….

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**SGC, 2005**

Cameron Mitchell had seen many women in his life. Women were something he noticed and had a deep, abiding appreciation for. Even his line of work brought him into contact with women on a fairly regular basis. His dress blues were a magnet. Not being senile – or a man with aspirations to the priesthood or sainthood – he'd allowed himself discourse with the ones who had been clearly willing. He'd even had several short-lived relationships that had died every time he'd been transferred.

He had an eye for beautiful women.

But when she walked backwards through the Stargate and turned around like she owned the place with that smile on her face he knew no one he'd ever seen could compare to her. She sashayed down the ramp with a saucy remark about being searched. Cameron wondered how in the world she could hide anything in that outfit. It was every sci-fi fan-boy's private fantasy. There didn't seem to be much softness to her, just the promise of a proud, firm body beneath the polished black leather. Long and lean, muscle and sinew beneath fair skin, she was tall enough that Cam wouldn't have to bend over to kiss her (though where that thought had come from he'd never admit). Midnight-dark hair framed her fair face. Loose strands teased at her throat and shoulders. When she stopped in front of him he was looking into eyes the soft grey color of the first light of dawn.

She paused when she was still on the ramp, making her slightly taller than he was. She swept him with a considering look, misty gray with a hint of seduction that he suspected came naturally to her. She didn't look all that dangerous but he also suspected that there was more to her than beauty and temptation.

"I know we haven't met. That I'm sure I would remember," she drawled. Damn, her voice was just as sexy as the rest of her – low and husky with an unfamiliar accent that teased his ears and made his blood run hot.

When he didn't answer - because he couldn't answer - she turned to General Landry, clearly wanting an introduction.

"Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell," Landry supplied.

After losing another heartbeat to utter astonishment and wonder Mitchell managed to drawl back, "Nice outfit."

It was all he could get past his dry throat. The room suddenly felt very hot. The smile she blazed at him didn't make it cooler. God damn she was lovely.

"Thanks! While I would normally be thrilled to have so much testosterone at my disposal…Where's my Daniel?"

Cameron felt a surge of totally irrational jealousy. He was vaguely aware of Landry hollering up at Walter to call Dr. Jackson.

Cameron reached behind the woman; deliberately put himself in her body space, to retrieve the silver case from the Marine.

"I'll take it from here," he told the men and dismissed them with a nod of his head.

Landry directed Mitchell to take her to the Briefing Room and said he would join them there in a few minutes.

As they walked side by side – well, Cameron walked, she sauntered – Mitchell said, "So you're Vala Mal Doran."

"Yes," she smiled again, brilliantly, "Did Daniel tell you about me?"

"Nope," Mitchell answered, wanting to bring her down a bit and put an end to this 'my' Daniel thing as quickly as possible. "I read his report."

She didn't seem fazed in the least. "He wrote about me? Can I read it?" She asked, eagerly.

"No," he said, "it's classified."

"Well that seems rather silly," she said, "considering that I was there."

Yeah, Mitchell thought, you were there and if it wasn't for Daniel you'd be on your way to a permanent cell at Area 51 right this very second.

He turned his head sideways to study her. He felt unnaturally alive in her presence. It was more than beauty, more than mystery. It was the amazing accident of ever having met her in the first place. She was an alien. In other circumstances they would never have crossed paths. If all the alien women out there were this intriguing he needed to get out there ASAP.

Sensing that she was being observed Vala turned her head. Gray velvet eyes met his and held. Black winged eyebrows rose speculatively. Cameron thought he felt the air sizzle a little as their eyes met.

Oh yes, this could be interesting.

He changed the subject. Patting it soundly he said, "So what's in the case?"

"Hey! Careful with that. It's a valuable artifact, the key to an Ancient treasure."

"Is that ancient with a small 'a'?"

"No," she answered.

The rest of the puzzle pieces shifted into place. No wonder Jackson had let her through the Gate with a promise of amnesty. Their resident expert on the Ancients would have gone mad in Atlantis, wondering what he hadn't seen back on Earth.

Cameron took her to the Briefing Room. The SFs assigned to keep an eye on things were already there, standing like statues on the wall, hands clasped behind them. Cam offered her a chair and then asked if she wanted something to drink or eat. She declined everything but he set a glass of water on the table for her anyway. Vala prowled the room like a curious cat, looking at everything and attempting flirty smiles with the nonresponsive SFs.

Cam lounged back in his chair and watched her. His pulse was starting to pound with a hot thunder of awareness. Her every movement offered a feast for his eyes.

She might have thought he didn't notice but he knew she was scoping out the room, noting exit points, counting the weapons in the room and sizing up objects that could be used as weapons. He felt a stab of appreciation that ran parallel to the completely sexual admiration he was already feeling. It was even more obvious that there was more to her than first met the senses.

She caught him looking. Her mouth was wide, delectable and smiling at him, pleased. She twisted a lock of black hair around her finger and swept him with a cool, assessing look. The turning of her wrist was stunningly sensual. He had been painfully aware of the shadowed swell of cleavage since she had appeared in the Gate Room.

At this point all of Cameron's senses were feeling sharp and hot with desire.

Oh yeah, this was going to be very interesting and Cameron started wondering just how long he might be able to get her to stick around.

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	2. Chapter 2

Cameron knew that women like that were always trouble, This one was certainly no different. Not just a woman – a mercenary, thief, with a questionable history and a more questionable sense of right and wrong.

When he found out about the bracelets he'd been unable to speak, grinding his teeth until his jaw hurt. Yeah, he'd wanted Daniel to stay. But when the Daedalus left Cameron had felt a vicarious rage in sympathy for what Daniel was going to feel when he woke up. Not _if_ he woke up. _When. _Teal'c was certain of that. So Cameron chose to be certain too.

He had woken up and they were waiting for permission from the British government to examine Glastonbury Tor; and he was begging Cameron for relief.

"I'm going to choke her," Daniel said, "Throttle her with my bare hands."

"You can't kill her," Cameron reminded him.

"I can choke her until she passes out."

"Really?" Cam was impressed.

"Jack taught me. I've never had to do it but right now…."

"Okay," Cameron said, because he'd never heard the Doctor sound like that before and hadn't realized he could.

"Thank you," Daniel exhaled, "Just… please."

"Okay!" Cam repeated. "I got this."

They made a plan of where Cam was taking Vala so that Daniel could be on the same floor and exchanged radios to stay in contact.

If the worst thing Dr. Jackson ever asked him to do was take a beautiful woman off his hands for a few hours, Cam would be a happy man.

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Vala sat at the table in the cafeteria and looked suspiciously at the plate of food Cameron put in front of her.

"What, pray tell, is _that?_" She asked.

"Spaghetti and meatballs," he drawled, dropping into the seat opposite her and taking the rest of the food off the tray. He set the tray aside and leaned his arms on the table, watching her.

"Spaghetti," she repeated the foreign word in her delightful accent; then wrinkled her nose. "It looks like worms."

"It's pasta," Cam said, "Perfectly edible."

She gave him a skeptical look and then brightened, sweeping him with her incredible gray eyes. "Meatballs sound intriguing though."

When she still didn't start eating, Cam picked up his own fork, reached over and twirled the heavy strands of pasta around it. He put the whole thing in his mouth and made a sound of intense satisfaction.

"Wow," he said, "Not as great as my grandmother's, of course, but not as bad as an MRE. Try it."

"Emery?" Vala repeated, looking utterly blank.

"M. R. E," Cam repeated slowly, "Meals Ready to Eat. It's what we take into the field with us."

"It sounds disgusting," Vala replied.

Cameron didn't reply to that. He just leaned back in his chair, rocking the front legs slightly off the floor and waited for her to start eating.

Now she was looking at the food as if the smell was making her mouth water. But she still hesitated. _Shrewd little minx, _he thought. Cam tilted forward again, banging the legs of the chair on the concrete and leaning nearly halfway across the table.

"Look," he said, in his flat, no nonsense voice, "If we were going to drug you we would have done it by now. You were unconscious for hours; and we can't poison you anymore – not without poisoning Dr. Jackson. You're stuck here and that was your choice. So I don't see any reason to deny yourself food and water."

He had the satisfaction of watching her look startled, if just for a moment. He'd caught her off guard. Good. He liked her a little off balance. It felt more like a level playing field. Then she appeared to give a mental shrug, picked up her fork and took an experimental bite. After a moment of chewing she said,

"Doesn't taste like worms."

"No, it doesn't," Cam said, wondering if she had ever actually eaten worms. It was an odd galaxy out there. That he knew from the reports.

She ate a little more, faster now. He had no idea when the last time she had eaten solid food might have been.

"It's good actually," Vala admitted, finally.

"You were hungry," he noted.

"I was ravenous," she said. She nodded towards the piece of chocolate cake in the middle of the table. "What's that?"

He explained it to her, realizing as he did that food didn't sound particularly good when the ingredients were described. She hesitated again and then took a forkful.

The look on her face was enough.

"Oh that's…." She ran out of words and took another bite. When half of it was gone she said, "I may have to marry you."

Cam choked suddenly and covered it by taking a long swallow of his iced tea. When he recovered he said, "Can we wait until you aren't connected to Jackson so he doesn't have to go on the honeymoon with us?"

She paused with another bite of cake almost to her mouth. Looking up at him with wide eyes she said,

"Honeymoon?"

"It's a trip that a newly married couple take to, ummmm…. Nevermind."

She continued to regard him a moment longer. Her gaze was cool and gray, like a winter landscape just before another snowstorm.

"Women on our planet have a relationship with chocolate that men don't quite understand," he told her.

She ate, and smiled like a cat.

"So you decided to exploit that and offer me some?" she asked.

"No," he said immediately. "I just figured you'd like it."

She tucked her chin and looked up at him through a heavy fringe of lashes. She was completely splendid in her femininity, despite the drab blue-gray jumpsuit. Her hair was a cascade of rich luster – colored like ravens, a heavy spill over her shoulders and down her back, vivid black against fair skin.

In her eyes he saw the natural wariness of being in a strange place among strangers. But he saw something else as well. She might not know what else her misty gray eyes betrayed. In them Mitchell saw curiosity, courage, confidence – and a hot awareness of him that equaled his own for her.

"You _do_ like it?" He asked.

The look she swept him with was full of sensual mischief.

"There's very little I don't enjoy tasting," she said. "I've found I like a little of everything, from simple to exotic to borderline dangerous. I probably like things you've never even had a chance to sample."

Mitchell swallowed. Hard. He tried to look away but her gaze was like a magnet.

"What have you found that you like the most?" He asked too lightly.

"I like solid fare, something I can wrap my tongue around and sink my teeth into," she answered, toying with him.

Mitchell laughed and pushed a bowl of strawberries towards her. In spite of how she had his blood thundering and was causing a very unruly private reaction, her outrageousness was compelling. He leaned back in the chair again and decided to just enjoy her company.

She finished eating and left very little. But she declined when he offered her more. She seemed surprised by that.

"Is food so easy to come by on your planet?" She asked.

"It is here," he hedged and that seemed to satisfy her.

"So what now?" She asked.

He took her for a tour of the 'public' parts of the SGC. He was limited in his movements, knowing he couldn't get too far from Daniel (who was working in his office.) He kept an eye on her too, watching for any signs of weakness, dizziness or disorientation.

She paused at the door of the basketball court and lifted her eyebrows.

"What's this for?" She asked.

The ghost of a brilliant idea flittered across Cameron's mind.

"C'mon," he said, "I'll show you."

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Vala was turning the ball in her hands, pressing it with long, elegant fingers. She was considering all the rules he had just laid out for her. Her expression said she had just as little regard for those rules as she had for any other.

"So you do all this and then get two-points?"

"Yes," he said.

"And you can trade these two points in for…? What exactly?"

"Nothing. They add up and you win the game."

"Then you trade that win in for….?"

"Nothing," Mitchell reiterated. "You just win the game."

Her forehead creased in a frown. Eyes narrowed. "Then this 'game' doesn't seem to serve any purpose."

"It's exercise. It's to have fun."

"Fun," she repeated. Her frown increased. Then here eyes brightened as if something had just occured to her that explained everything. "Well clearly this game was invented by men! That's why it's pointless. Wasn't it?"

Mitchell sighed and resisted a growl. She might be breathtaking, but it was wrapped in mystery and sarcasm. She was infuriating at times. But desire mocked his attempts to be angry.

He moved in to take the ball and she effortlessly put it behind her back, grinning. When he tried to reach to get it, their bodies collided. The collision was like the thunder that followed the flash of lightning.

He caught his breath as she staggered back a step from the impact. Instinctively he reached out and caught her around the waist with his arm. Her eyes and smile were sultry.

"Now this part of the game is a lot more fun," she said.

She was still holding the ball behind her back. He hit it with his fist and knocked it away. It rolled towards the door, went left and hit the wall. They both ignored it.

"It's not part of the game," Mitchell said. His voice was thick.

"It should be," she said.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

Her mouth was inches from his.

He could hear footsteps and voices in the corridor. They were coming closer and there hardly do for any of the Base personnel to find Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell – leader of SG1 – kissing the enigmatic female alien who had put Dr. Jackson's life in danger.

Mitchell let go of her and took a step back. He went to get the ball and tossed it to her. She caught it with a considerable amount of natural reflex and skill.

"Let's play," he said.

Her smile was still saucy. "Yes. Let's."

A group of men and women pass the door of the court. Finding it in use the military personnel gave Mitchell a respectful salute and moved on to the next court.

He was two points up when she started to collapse. He was close enough to drop the ball and grab her before her head hit the floor. A quick glance at his watch showed that she had been separated from Daniel by one floor and ninety minutes.

His radio crackled in the split second before he lifted Vala in his arms.

"_Mitchell?"_

"Jackson?"

"_Getting nauseous, dizzy."_

"She's out cold. Meet you in the infirmary."

"_Roger that."_

He carried her to the infirmary because it was faster than waiting for a gurney. Daniel was already there, lying down.

A few minutes in the same room together was all it took to clear Daniel's head and wake Vala up.

Carolyn Lam was making notes on a chart. She finished, passed it to a nurse and another one appeared in her hands instantly. She paused with the pen held over the paper.

"What happened?" She asked.

"Lost consciousness. No other signs or symptoms," Cam answered.

"I'm right here," Vala said.

Lam looked at her. "Other symptoms?" She asked.

"None," Vala admitted.

Mitchell made a low scoffing noise. "Is it exhausting? Being you?" He asked her.

"You have no idea," she sighed, theatrically.

Mitchell shook his head. Daniel lay back on the pillow and closed his eyes, arm up over them - the clearest body language for _leave me alone._

"I'm going to go grab a shower," Mitchell said. "I'll catch up later."

Vala grinned at him like the Cheshire cat.

He left, wondering how cold he could get the water.

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	3. Chapter 3

Cameron should have been surprised when they actually found a buried treasure. But he wasn't and couldn't honestly pretend to be. Being part of Star Gate Command was turning out to be everything he'd expected. He had read the reports and longed to be one of the good guys, one of the elite out there saving the world on a monthly basis.

Okay, he knew better. He was actually going to be one of the body guards for the Uber-brains and brawn who actually saved the world on a regular basis.

Then they had found the Ancient device and the stones and the next thing he knew Jackson and Vala were lying side by side in a kind of stasis. Not moving. The med personnel walking around them talking in hushed whispers, the ones they used in hospitals when they needed to talk but didn't know how to say these things too loudly. There were wires and sensors and monitors and it was way to much like the place he had spent way too much time in, trying to relearn how to use his legs.

If he flexed his hands he could still feel the parallel bars and sometimes he wanted to leave and not sit in what felt like a deathwatch.

Vala's flat line shocked him. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, convinced there was no air in the room to draw into his lungs. He couldn't look at her or watch them trying to revive her. He fixed his gaze on Daniel and _willed_ him to do something.

Wherever they were and whatever they were doing Daniel was the one certified in cultures, experienced with being off world. He had an honorary degree in 'dealing with weird shit.' Daniel would fix it; and even when Lam called Vala's TOD, Mitchell continued to believe it. Death seemed to fear Daniel Jackson. The Doctor treated it with very little respect.

His faith is vindicated when Vala come back to life with a vengeance.

She still doesn't move or sit up but her breathing is there and so is her heartbeat – and suddenly so is his. Life flooded back into his veins.

Daniel is there. Daniel is with her and no matter how much Vala annoys him, Jackson won't let her die.

Cam believed this with ferocity that he recognized but found unsettling.

He wanted to leave but found he couldn't. So he stood and watched them through the glass, side by side, existing but not really alive.

Many long hours later the second flat line took them both – Vala and Jackson. This time it went through the floor, up the wall, and invaded Mitchell's soul.

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Teal'c was bigger, stronger and Mitchell had no doubt faster than he was. Somehow he managed to keep up with him, the thrice-damned Ancient device balanced awkwardly between them the entire time. They hurled it into the billowing wave as if they'd rehearsed it and it hit dead center.

Cam almost couldn't believe it and there was something in Teal'c's expression that said he couldn't quite believe they'd made that shot either.

Then they told him Vala and Daniel were conscious and he had run out the door with the Jaffa hard on his heels.

He made it to her side in record time. She was up on her elbows, breathing in hard shallow gasps, eyes wild, face pale. Her heart monitor was frantic. Vala's defenses were shattered. She looked like she was going to bolt if she could just determine a direction. Cam came skidding to a halt and realized he had no idea what to do.

He barely knew her. But he already _did_ know that she was a whole different ballgame than the one he was used to playing with women. Vala had a different set of needs, wants, desires, instincts, different triggers than any woman he'd ever known. He didn't have the foggiest idea what made her tick or even what had just happened to her.

Vala stopped looking around and looked up. Her gaze settled on him. A long solid minute passed before she made a sound like a sob and it broke him. He sat down on the bed and gathered her in his arms.

There was no pretense in her now, no bravado. Tears leapt into her eyes and made her look scared and alone. She didn't wrap her arms around him, didn't hug. She clung to him, hands fisted tightly in his shirt, face buried in his neck. He stroked over her back for a moment and then laced fingers into her hair, gripped the back of her head and held her there.

Vala made a strangled noise, desperate and sad. He rocked her for a moment. It was unnerving the way she rested so still against him, cocooned in pain.

From the other bed he could hear Jackson gasping, "They're dead. They're both dead," while Dr. Lam tried to get his heart rate down.

Vala shivered violently in his arms and he murmured, "Shhh," in his soft Midwestern drawl and it seemed to soothe her.

It made him feel… strange…. And good. Strong in a way he didn't understand.

Vala made a very small sound, almost a whimper.

"Hey," Cameron said. He put two fingers under her chin and tilted her face up. "Look at me."

She did, gray eyes glazed.

"It's over," he went on, "You're here. You're safe. Nothing is going to hurt you here."

"No," she said. There was a razor chill in her voice. "No. I'm not sure anyone is going to be safe ever again."

He wanted to ask what she meant. But Vala leaned forward and rested her head against his chest again, closing her eyes. Cam clamped his mouth shut on the questions that he wanted to ask.

There would be time for that later. Sometimes, he guessed even women who played by an utterly different set of rules came face to face with something that rocked the foundation of the world; and even those women just needed to be held.

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	4. Chapter 4

**This story takes place in my Sunshine and Shadow Universe. In that AU Daniel is married to my OC, Jillian North. She makes an appearance here a little earlier in Midnight and Dawn than I had intended.**

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Cameron was still feeling a little grumpy about not being able to get SG1 back together. It certainly seemed that there was a new and viable force to be reckoned with in the galaxy and that should have Daniel all set to rejoin. Teal'c was on the verge of rebelling against the new Jaffa nation on the grounds that they were being blind and ignorant. Sam _had_ to be getting bored with nothing but technology.

But he was making no further ground with getting them back and if Landry wasn't breathing down his neck yet about naming a new team that was just a matter of time. He supposed he could understand the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the other three. They had just come off an eight year war on two fronts. They deserved a break after double victories like that.

He's only been here a few weeks and already Jackson had tried to die on him three times. That alone might make the guy hesitant about jumping back in.

He was frowning when he entered the cafeteria and he knew it but didn't care. 'In a mood' his grandmother would say.

"You're more attractive when you smile."

A familiar voice, low and accented, heavenly: Vala, sliding up next to him and pushing a tray until it bumped his. She was studying his scowling face much too closely.

"Not much I feel like smiling about," he said.

She nodded. "I know. You just got here and now it looks like the place won't even be funded for much longer."

Mitchell's frown turned to a glare. "You're not helping."

But she had a point and he had no idea how she could. Vala didn't know his history. She couldn't know how he had pushed himself, forced himself to get up one more time when all he had wanted to do was lie down. Day after endless day spent in _not_ flying, _not _playing basketball. Days when his entire life went from the bed to the wheelchair, from the wheelchair to the PT bars. Days spent on morphine drips in complete isolation because he tended to talk in his drugged state.

Hours spent trying to convince his mother he didn't want to come home yet because he knew the subtext of her insistence was that their house was already set up for someone without legs, in case the Air Force had taken his the way they had taken his daddy's.

Those conversations had made him get up, more times than he could count. He had done all that partly for his mama and partly because General O'Neill had promised him anything he wanted.

He wanted the SGC and he wanted SG1 and now both were in danger of evaporating.

But Vala couldn't know any of that.

She smiled, brightly. "Did you want me to help?"

Cam started to snap a reply at her. But in that moment there was an exclamation of surprise from the kitchen; a snap and a sizzle. A hot tongue of flame flared up off the cooktop as some grease caught fire. It was fairly common to see the kitchen staff bustling around in the area behind the cafeteria line. They were on the fire and had it out in second; too quick even for the smoke alarms.

Not fast enough for Vala. She froze for a moment as all the color drained from her face; then a visible flinch traveled the length of her body and left her hands shaking.

Cameron remembered the flat line. He remembered the way she had been pale and shaking in his arms when she woke up. No matter how irritating she could be, there were some things no one should have to endure. No one should have to carry some things around as memories. Being burned to death was one of those things.

All his own frustrations disappeared.

"Hey," he said, softly.

Vala didn't answer. She just turned and stared at him wide-eyed.

"Come on," Mitchell said, taking charge. He put his stuff on her tray and stacked them so that he could carry both. Balancing the food on one hand he used the other to steer her to a table out of the way, far back in the corner. "Sit." He repeated it when she hesitated.

Then she sank down, put her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. Cam started to sit across from her, thought about it a moment and then shifted at the last moment so that he was sitting next to her. Without thinking any more he put his arm around her shoulders.

"You want to eat?" He asked.

She shook her head. Cam sighed. What could he say in the face of this kind of trauma? He squirmed in his seat for a moment and then said.

"You want to get out of here?"

She put her hands down and made a face. "And go play basketball? Take another tour of the endless gray maze of corridors?"

"No," he said, "Get out of here. As in out. Up top. Sunshine. Open space."

Vala's face looked blank. "You're teasing."

"No," he said. "They let you go to DC, didn't they?"

"We were beamed there! I never saw a ray of light that wasn't coming from a window."

"But you'd like to."

"Even you can't arrange that," Vala said.

"No," He admitted, "But I know someone who can."

"Who?"

He grinned, took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Come on."

(0)

Daniel tilted his head down and regarded Mitchell over the top of his glasses as If Mitchell was a piece of perplexing untranslatable text.

"You want to do what now?"

Daniel had seemed a little chilly, a little more reserved than usual, from the moment Cameron had appeared in the doorway. He had looked up from the book in his left hand. The book was huge but he held it easily. Mitchell didn't know what it was but he figured it was an Ancient Tome of Things that Are a Big Fucking Deal.

Something only Daniel would understand.

Daniel's right hand was adjusting the glasses that were giving him fits because they weren't made correctly. He looked expectant, when he first looked up at the door and then he blinked and Cameron knew it was because he had been waiting for something else – _someone_ else – that used to be there and wasn't anymore.

Damn.

"Take Vala up topside," Mitchell repeated slowly.

"As in, out there? To do what? Hike the mountain? Hang out in the parking lot?"

"I want to take her out."

"Like on a date?"

"NO!" Mitchell said, too loudly. "Just out from under the weight of all this concrete."

"For how long?" Daniel asked.

"You know we can't be gone longer than ninety minutes," Cameron said, feeling a bit grumpy. "So we'll go do whatever's off the first exit ramp. There's a Denny's I think."

"You want to take Vala to Denny's?"

"Jackson, I would _really_ appreciate it if you'd stop answering me with questions." Mitchell was starting to get used to Daniel's way of getting information. He seemed to never zero in on anything unless he could circle it for a while.

"I just want to make sure I have this all straight," the Doctor said, confirming Mitchell's suspicions.

"Look, it'll get her out of your hair for a while. So do you really care where I want to take her?

"I do if I'm going to be the one whose ass is in a sling because I talked Landry into it."

"I'll take full responsibility," Mitchell swore.

Daniel inhaled and exhaled on a long sigh. He put his hands on the top of his lab table and looked down for a moment. Then he looked up as if he had just lost an argument with himself.

"Fine. I will ask Landry if you can take Vala out for a while," Daniel said.

Cam practically bounced on his toes.

"Good. Great, in fact." There was a slight pause and then Cam said, "Oh! One more thing?"

"There's more?" Daniel seemed horrified.

"Umm yeah," Cam said. "I was hoping that Jillian might loan her something nicer to wear than the blue jumpsuit."

Daniel stared. "You want my wife to loan clothes to Vala?"

Cam shrugged in a forced attempt at lightness. "I thought they got past that whole 'showing up in her underwear in your bed' thing."

Jackson shook his head. "You've got a lot to learn about my wife."

"What if I say please?" Cam insisted. "It's not like I know a whole lot of women on this Base well enough to ask them a favor like that."

Daniel's eyes narrowed, creased at the corners. There was something a little wicked about it.

"If you say please," he answered, "I'll let _you_ ask her."

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	5. Chapter 5

Frankly, Vala thought Mitchell was out of his mind sending her to Jillian of all people. She and Jillian got along about as well as planets and meteors. She was on the way to Daniel's quarters with no idea if this meeting between them was going to be a full-blown crater impact or just a glancing flyby.

She didn't understand why she couldn't just rifle through the lost-and-found bins again like she had for the trip to DC. The outfit she'd put together had been _fine_. At least she had thought so. She could admit to the stash of clothing she had stolen from the bins and hidden away in one of their little supply rooms (where they didn't even _lock_ the doors and she was going to go back and have a look through all those boxes first chance she got.) But then they might make her put it back.

Apparently Mitchell didn't think that outfit was appropriate for 'Denny's.' Whatever that was. She had a feeling he hadn't thought it was appropriate for DC either.

She rounded a corner and skidded to a halt. Daniel and Jillian were standing in the hallway outside their door. There was no one else around. Daniel was facing in Vala's direction but looking only at Jillian. So she was certain he hadn't seen her. He was slouched against a concrete wall, one shoulder propping him up with a lazy confidence that Vala had never seen before. He had a hand against Jillian's face, fingers laced in the hair on the back of her head.

Vala ducked backwards and then peered cautiously around the corner.

"He said please?" Daniel asked and Vala knew she had never heard that lilt in his voice before. Not ever.

There was faint laughter in the feminine voice that answered him. "Yes. If he'd been wearing his hat it would have been in his hand. He all but groveled."

"You don't have to do this," Daniel said.

The woman in front of him lifted up on tiptoe and tilted her head back and Vala recognized the universal invitation to kiss.

But she wasn't really watching them. She was only watching Daniel, and realizing that she barely recognized him. For all the time they have spent together, Vala has never seen him like this. Alone with his wife, Daniel was _happy._ She's never known him to look that relaxed, so free and alive.

It explained a lot and it was a little bit of a comfort. She knew enough about marriage to know that it was rarely as binding as people liked to think. But, really, she'd been thinking that she was losing her touch.

Men didn't normally turn her down flat, even the married ones.

When Daniel kissed his wife, leaned back, and smiled, Vala knew she had never seen that man in her life.

The Daniel she thought she knew was beautiful, cool and never to be touched. He was something never to be taken or stolen and Vala would give anything to take and to steal him just because of that.

The man smiling into the eyes of the woman he had just kissed was beautiful and warm and open – someone Vala would give everything to be taken by.

"Where are you going?" Jillian asked.

"I remember most of what I read from their holy book when I was…there," Daniel answered, "I'm cross-referencing some of it, trying to write it from memory."

"Are you getting anywhere?"

Daniel shrugged. "Conjecture. Mostly still guessing at this point."

"So you'll be in the office?"

"Yes."

They kissed again, quickly. Then Jillian opened the door to their quarters and went inside. Daniel stood for a moment looking at the door as if he was considering going through it too.

Then he straightened and his body language changed back to the cool, isolated person she recognized.

"You can come out now," he said.

Vala paused, biting her lower lip. For a moment she wasn't sure whether to call his bluff or acknowledge him. It occurred to her to turn and make a run down the hall. But she'd never make it to the end before he caught her.

"Look, Vala," Daniel said, "It might surprise you, but I was trained by a guy who spent a lot of time in Special Forces and took it personally when any member of his team got hurt or killed. So we learned the hard way to pay attention to what he said. I've had people way better than you hide from me in way better places."

She stepped boldly around the corner, hands on her hips.

Daniel didn't move. He just stood there waiting in front of the door as if he was guarding something precious.

"That was lovely," Vala said, walking straight up to him and stopping with inches between them. "So touching. I was beginning to wonder if you actually liked girls."

"I like girls, Vala," Daniel answered, "I _love_ my wife."

Vala almost blinked when she realized that's what it was. The thing that had seemed to be missing. It was _love_. There seemed to be only one thing left in this miserable place of gray wall and floors and endless stripes of lines and right angles that Daniel truly loved. Nothing else really mattered to him anymore.

"Didn't know you had it in you," Vala said with a small trace of sarcasm.

Daniel turned and backed her up against the wall. He pinned her there, one hand braced over her shoulder, beside her head.

"You don't know me at all, Vala," Daniel answered, in a low voice with no inflection in it.

He let her go abruptly, turned, and walked away down the hall.

Vala watched him go and knew that he had just told her the absolute truth.

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	6. Chapter 6

Vala dipped a spoon into the dark creamy liquid that Mitchell had told her was called a 'chocolate milkshake' and took another bite, and then another. She was beginning to understand why the women of this world had a special relationship with chocolate. It seemed to come in a wide variety of forms and each one was more delicious than the last.

She was fairly certain she could sell boxes of this stuff on several planets – for much more than the Tau'ri seemed to think it was worth. They were sitting on a naquadah mine and didn't realize it. She still wasn't certain why this seemingly backwater planet full of people who didn't even know the Stargate program existed had managed to defeat the Goa'uld _and_ the Replicators. But she considered chocolate a testimony to their wisdom and brilliance.

Not that she was going to tell them.

"So then what happened?" Mitchell asked. He had poked at her with questions about how exactly she had come to be in possession of a set of super-soldier armor (though she had never heard the warriors of Anubis called that before and wasn't sure at first what he was talking about).

"I surrendered to a troop of Anubis' remaining Jaffa," she said. She tried the straw again but the milkshake was still too thick.

"You let yourself be captured by the forces of Anubis?" Mitchell asked.

"It was hardly his 'forces'. A few Jaffa. Fortunately Anubis had been out of the picture long enough to not realize I was no longer Qetesh, or he just didn't care. Qetesh was a minor Goa'uld at best, though she enjoyed a certain amount of power while cooperating with Baal. Before that she enjoyed the protection of Ra for several thousand of your years."

"I see," Mitchell said.

"So I surrendered and asked to be brought before him. It worked for his brother," Vala went on, stirring her shake and taking another bite with the spoon.

"Eat your cheeseburger before it gets cold," Mitchell advised, "His brother?"

"Osiris," Vala said. Then a puzzled look crossed her face as if she had just remembered something she'd never figured out. "Though from what I understand he really wasn't a 'brother' anymore in the conventional sense of the word."

Mitchell actually blinked. "Oh! Right," he said.

Vala looked up at him. Something in his tone triggered an alarm. "You've had encounters with Osiris?"

"You could say that," Cameron said, drily. He dipped a french fry into some barbecue sauce and nodded for her to go on. "Why did you want to get that close to Anubis?"

"I didn't," she said, "I wanted the Al'kesh, to trade for a cache of weapons-grade naquadah."

Mitchell glanced around the diner but no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.

"They put me on the Al'Kesh with a few Jaffa, but I dispatched them in short order." Vala stopped long enough to put a serious dent in her cheeseburger. "This is good. A little greasy."

"Glad you like it," Cam said, "You dispatched a few Jaffa?"

"It's amazing how easy that can be when they believe you're a god," Vala rolled her eyes, "A few shots from a zat'nik'tel and they were gone."

"And then?"

Vala shrugged, munched french fries for a bit. "I went to the bridge, took the ship. I thought I'd get away quickly but they had a sort of 'deadman's switch' connected to the helm. By the time I disabled it the other Al'kesh traveling with us had figured out something was wrong. They opened fire _and_ ringed the…the 'super soldier' on board before I had a chance. Who decided to call them that, by the way?"

"A good friend of mine," Mitchell answered, "Used to be on an SG team."

Mitchell waited patiently while she ate some more, drank the milkshake and tried dipping French fries in various sauces. She decided she liked the barbecue sauce the best and Mitchell complimented her on having a discerning palate.

"I sealed the bridge," she continued, "and exchanged fire with the other ship. They managed to take out enough of the ship to leave me dead in space but I at least returned the favor."

"And the Kull warrior?" Cam asked.

"I was losing life support, so I shut it off in all the other parts of the ship," Vala took a breath, "Even the Kull can't survive that kind of cold airlessness for long."

Mitchell nodded. "So then you took the suit."

She nodded. "I took the suit, repaired as much of the ship's life support as I could and sent a distress signal. A little while later the Prometheus showed up off my port bow. You probably know the rest."

"I read the reports, yes."

Vala drank again, looking at him over the top of the large, flower-shaped glass. She had noticed that he was giving very little away, in expression or in word. Cameron Mitchell was looking back at her with shrewd clear blue eyes.

She pretended not to notice how intense the scrutiny was, pretended to be fascinated by the chocolate milkshake. But his eyes slid through her as if she was made of nothing. She had to swallow against a sudden thickness in her throat. Finally she said,

"What?"

He understood that she was asking what the look in his eyes meant.

"Was any of that the truth?" He asked in a voice that was as soft as his consonants.

Her eyebrows lifted. It seemed that maybe she should be insulted by that. Instead she was oddly flattered that he knew her well enough to question it.

"Lying is an art," she said, "and sometimes it's just too damned much work."

Mitchell pushed his plate full of crumbs and smeared barbecue sauce off to the side. He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, stretching his legs out as far as he could. One was practically in the aisle. The other reached under the table and wound up next to her. He tilted his head as he regarded her thoughtfully. His lips quirked as if he was going to speak, to dispute her statement possibly; but he remained silent.

Vala took a breath. She wanted to say more, to convince him that she was telling him the truth. What _was_ it with the men of the SGC and their insistence on honesty? Mitchell wasn't quite the cock-sure arrogant bastard that Daniel could be. But he was just as intriguing. Vala had found him to be another extremely attractive male from the moment she had laid eyes on him. She had at first thought he was a fairly simple man. An officer and a gentleman was the way they phrased it on this planet and she'd met that type before. But now she was thinking that he was more complex than she imagined.

She had no idea why she would want to defend herself to him. So she exhaled the breath and smiled instead.

So of course the smartass sitting across from her gave her a totally shit-eating grin because he _knew_ she had been on the verge of defending herself.

Trust her often questionable luck to be trapped on a backwater planet with one of its few perceptive residents. She suddenly felt much warmer than she had a moment before.

Mitchell signaled the perky young woman who had served them lunch and when she arrived at their table he ordered an apple pie to go and then paid the bill.

"Is that one of those 'credit cards'?" Vala asked.

"Not exactly," Mitchell gave her a non-answer reply.

She watched the process of paying for the lunch. Then Mitchell was standing and pulling her up by the hand.

"Come on," he said, "We've got just enough time to stop and get some ice cream for the pie."

"Ice cream?" She asked.

"Probably the second most popular thing on Earth according to women."

"Does it come in chocolate?"

As they walked out the door and in the direction of his Mustang, Cameron replied, "Does it ever."

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	7. Chapter 7

They were running drills, sneakers squeaking on the gym floor. She sprinted and he was right there with her. Five steps and she had dropped her shoulder, feinted to the left and suddenly it wasn't drills anymore. It was a real game, cutthroat, and she had gotten shockingly good at this in a short amount of time.

Mercenary. Thief. Great reflexes and coordination. A watchful eye; and a fast learner.

"They're not going to give you the funding," she said, breathing heavily.

"I know," he answered, dancing around in perfect step with her, trying to steal the ball.

"How did your planet make so many advances when your leadership is so stupid?" There was a challenge in her voice and a hint of anger.

She shot the ball and he let her do it. She let go of it as if it was a grenade. It missed, slammed against the backboard and they watched it bounce on the floor for a moment.

Vala moved to get it and he caught her wrist.

"If we can't get what we need here, we'll need to get it somewhere else," he said.

Their eyes, so similar in color and intensity, met and held.

"You think I can get it." She stated it with a satisfied purr in her voice and a flash of …_something_ in her eyes.

"I know you can. In spite of the act. Daniel wants to turn you into a lap dog when you're a fox – in more ways than one, actually. But I need the cunning one."

She continued to watch him until a sly smile touched her lips and when she spoke her voice was different. "All right."

She leaned closer, like she was going to kiss him. Then she veered off at the last moment and danced past him to get the ball.

Cameron went after her. Their bodies collided, shoulders, chest and hip when he took the ball. Every muscle in his body alerted, tingled with awareness. He shot the ball, missed and let it go. Vala snagged it, vaulted past him and leapt for the basket.

"Two points," she said, smiling with smug triumph.

"It's early," Cameron pointed out.

"Right," she drawled. "Like you've got a chance. I think the student has surpassed the master.

Cameron danced with her again until he got the ball out of her hands. Then he charged down the court on legs he'd been told would never hold him up again. He grabbed the ring of the net and hung there for a moment just because he could.

When he dropped down she was just standing there, looking at him, one hip cocked with her balled fist resting on it. There was a lazy, sexy smile on her face.

The next thing he knew he had her face between his hands and he was kissing her.

He waited for her to tell him to stop, to give some sign that she wanted to know what the hell he thought he was doing and he couldn't just grab her and kiss her like that. Not like this, with his hands starting to go everywhere, on her hair, her arms, down her back, under her shirt. With his mouth invading hers, tongue seeking.

But all she did was kiss back as if her life depended on it, pushing forward, lips pressed to his, tongue in his mouth, groaning with a kind of pain. The kiss was wild; as if they were locked in a contest to conquer each other.

He propelled her backwards with the sheer force of his desire until they hit the wall. She stumbled and he caught her around the waist, supporting her and bringing her hips up against his. Trapped between him and the wall he pressed his full length forward, flattening her to the wall.

She still didn't resist.

"You can't," he brought his mouth off of hers to breathe, panting words, "keep doing this…teasing…driving me…nuts."

"Okay," she said, helplessly.

"You can't…" Cam was just about to kiss her again when her agreement penetrated his ear, made its way to his brain and made a connection, "What?"

She was sucking on his neck in a way that was going to leave a mark, arching against him for balance. She kissed his jaw and his cheek and it was so soft now that he had to concentrate to make sure he was feeling it.

"I said, 'Okay.'"

He jumped when she spoke. Then he ground his hips forward. "We're doing this?"

"Yes."

"We're so doing this and we're going to keep doing this," he said, demanding to be sure.

He was in full conquering-hero mode now and she seemed to find it breathtaking. It made him deliriously happy and more turned on than he had been in his life.

"Mitchell," she groaned.

"Cameron," he corrected.

Vala made an impatient sound and now she did push him back a little. "Fine, Cameron," she said, "I just don't think we should do this here."

A little shock went through him when he realized they were still on a basketball court, with the door open and if she had so much as touched him in a certain place he would have lost it. Gone off like a twenty-one gun salute. Like rockets on the Fourth of July.

Because that was how badly he wanted her.

He put his face against her neck and shoulder to catch his breath.

"Does a bed sound good to you?" He asked.

A tickle of laughter brushed past his cheek. Her smile was slow, honey-sweet.

"A bed sounds very good," she answered.

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	8. Chapter 8

She had been playing him from the beginning of this. From the moment she had walked into the commissary she had been trying to manipulate him into coming to P8X-412. The hell of it was that he had known it all along and still let her do it. He had used her manipulation of him to manipulate Landry into giving them a mission because it was what _he_ wanted to do.

It was selfish and he knew it. He was impatient and he was also incredibly selfish. His mama liked to say he was just good at getting what he wanted and never taking no for an answer. He didn't want to take 'no' as an answer from Teal'c or from Jackson. He thought getting them out there to see the new threat to the galaxy would stir the 'hero' in both of them.

Eight years of a war on two fronts and the 'hero' in both of them seemed quite content to rest on its laurels.

And their loyalty to each other was staggering. Mitchell had thought he understood it and was prepared for it. He thought he would even get to bask in it a little bit, even if he couldn't be part of it – not yet. He knew that if he could talk Landry into letting Vala go to P8X-412 Jackson would have to go; and if Jackson went, Teal'c would go if for no other reason than to make sure Vala stayed alive.

In his delight at having two-thirds of the and back together, he had really underestimated just how pissed off being wrangled like that would make the Doctor and the Jaffa.

It was beginning to look to Mitchell as if his 'kryptonite' was the complete inability to see anything from anyone else's point of view.

When Vala had walked out of the anteroom speaking as a Goa'uld, Mitchel had been certain that if not for Daniel's life, Teal'c would have happily snapped her neck. The Jaffa's silence was eloquent. The anger coming from him was palpable. The Goa'uld were bad enough, a blight on the galaxy that had gone on too long. To impersonate one to subjugate a poor and ignorant people was the definition of immoral. The only leash holding Teal'c in check had been the threat to Daniel.

Mitchell still wanted SG1 back together but now he had a better idea of just what that would mean, just what he would be expected to control. He stayed out of Teal'c's way, not daring to be the one who snapped the leash on that temper. He figured Teal'c wouldn't ever take it out on Daniel and he couldn't take it out on Vala. But one puny and annoying Air Force Colonel might make a suitable target. One deep thousand-yard-stare from the Jaffa ought to be enough to shatter Mitchell into little bits.

_These humans must be told the truth._ The low, deadly croon of an utterly pissed off Teal'c. It had made Cam shiver a little. He hoped he never heard Teal'c's voice sound like that again; and if he did, hopefully it wouldn't be directed at Cam.

And truthfully Cam had been more than a little disappointed in Vala. For the space of a single heartbeat he had almost been convinced she really was still Qetesh. Finding out she was stringing them along to get at an abandoned treasure had tipped Cameron's temper.

He had dragged her into the anteroom the first chance he got and pinned her up against a wall.

"What the hell are you doing?"

If he'd thought she was going to be intimidated he was wrong. Okay, there was a brief instant when the color seemed to spill out of her face; but then it flowed back in again angrily.

"I do what I have to do," she snapped back, "Just as you do."

For a moment he couldn't speak at all. There was a cloud in her eyes – a cold, gray thundercloud. Mitchell tried to take a breath before speaking again. He spent some time just looking at her. Firstly because she was really good to look at no matter how dire the situation. Tall, slender, sinewy, narrow-waist but broad shoulders. Tougher than she looked, resilient in and out of bed, nothing fragile about her though she was distinctly female and everything was most certainly in all the right places. The dress she was wearing had a certain earthy, sensual quality. Her hair looked darker against the pale color, blue-black and spilling like ink around her back and shoulders. She had a knack for this Goa'uld thing too – pulling it off with just the right amount of arrogance and benevolence. If Cameron hadn't had a very clear memory of two nights spent in her bed he might not even think it was the same woman.

_Besides, I think I've seen just about everything there is to see. _Jackson's casual statement had caused a ripple of totally unreasonable jealousy. Daniel had been in a combat situation at the time, stripping an enemy of a valuable resource; and he had made it clear that he wanted nothing at all to do with Vala now. Cameron hadn't known that the Doctor could be quite that cold. He knew that Daniel would never cheat on his wife. He had been the moral voice of the SGC since the first mission to Abydos.

Cam stared at Vala secondly because he was trying to judge how best to handle the situation. She had gone from angry to…. He didn't know what. He had a feeling if he kept trying to push her they would end up in a no-holds-barred brawl. This was Vala Mal Doran in _her_ world. The look in her eyes said she was ready to stun the asshole who tried to get between her and the treasure she had come for.

Of course the asshole happened to be him.

She was trying to make him crazy, he'd decided.

Daniel had done his best to convince her to tell these people the truth. Daniel seemed to have some odd hold over her that Cameron didn't understand. It was something that even Vala appeared to be fighting.

Her instincts were to protect herself and her own interests.

He put his hands on her arms and rubbed slightly, up and down. Her skin was warm and dry under his palms.

"Look, Vala," he said, "We're obviously very different people who have lived very different lives. But I can't believe our versions of what's right and wrong could be so opposite."

"So now it's wrong for me to watch out for myself? Would you please tell me who is going to do that for me if I don't?"

_Damn_, Mitchell thought, _how long had she been on her own?_

"Maybe in this case, yes," he answered, "You're getting a huge finder's fee for the treasure under Glastonbury Tor. Why take from these people? They have nothing."

"Because they can't _eat_ the things in those boxes. It doesn't do them any good."

"We can open up the Stargate for them, show them how it works and set them up in trade with other planets.

Vala blinked. That had certainly never occurred to her.

"And you can tell them that _after_ you tell them you aren't a god," Mitchell said.

"Why not tell them and leave out the part where I'm not a god?"

"You're still thinking you might need this place," Mitchell guessed. "You still don't want to give up the advantage you think you have here."

She kept looking at him steadily for a moment and then turned away, looking at nothing. Old memories could hurt, Mitchell knew. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist. They were cool in spite of the desert heat.

"It will show them that _people_ can help them," Cameron explained. "They don't need gods to be successful."

"Am I wrong to do what I do?" She asked softly.

A glimpse then, of the _real_ Vala. The woman buried under layers. He had seen much in the short time they had been together. She wasn't incapable of normal emotions. He had seen her frightened out of her wits, exhilarated, exasperated, angry, teasing, passionate. But mostly Cameron knew she lived behind a shield tighter and thicker than the one Jackson used to hold the world at bay.

Unfortunately he didn't trust her even when she let the shield slip a little. For all he knew it was another part of the game.

"I think," Cam said, slowly, "That what you do should be examined on a case by case basis; and in this case it would be better for you to come clean with these people and see what we can salvage of it."

Vala's mouth tightened, twisted a little and then loosened. It wasn't a smile but Cameron had a feeling he had won.

"You have to start trusting people at some point in your life. If you were good to these people then they'll probably give you a second chance; especially if you have something to offer them. You have to trust their basic goodness and you have to trust us to take care of you."

She laughed, a silvery, velvet coated sound with no humor in it.

"In case you hadn't noticed, darling, at least two of you already want to strangle me with their bare hands."

All right, that was probably true. Cam knew Teal'c was angry; and nothing in Jackson's carefully worded reports had ever indicated how deep his passion ran.

Vala's body suddenly shifted in minute but obvious ways, offering the one thing she was sure would distract him, the one thing she was sure he would take.

"Can't we talk about this reasonably?" She asked, with a sweet, welcoming smile.

"We _are_ talking," he said. He caught her wrist when herhands started to wander.

"That's not what I meant," she pouted.

Cameron shook her a little. "You're better than this," he said with finality.

Vala shook her head ruefully. "Tauri," she muttered, as if that explained everything.

Sometimes, Cameron thought, maybe it did.

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	9. Chapter 9

In the end he was proud of her. When the people of P8X-412 had fallen ill all the pretense around Vala had fallen away. Given what he knew about Vala – that she was a petty, self-centered, manipulative thief who could be distracted by a chest full of shiny objects – no one could say after this that she didn't have a heart at all. Cam knew she could have walked away at any point. She knew dozens of gate addresses and there was nothing holding her to this fight against the Ori. She could have pocketed as much of her treasure as she could hold in the SGC garb they had provided her and taken off without so much as a word. The good Lord knew she had already suffered enough at the hands of the Ori.

She was a pain in the ass but Mitchell was quickly coming to consider her _his_ pain in the ass. He was getting a little possessive about that, too.

He had leaned in and kissed her cheek and said thank you when he realized how exhausted she was at one point. She had turned back and kissed him full on the lips and it hadn't seemed even remotely seductive. It had felt like she was reaching out, seeking comfort. In spite having already shared her bed, the kiss had left him feeling oddly shell-shocked. He had been able to feel the press of her lips for a long time afterwards.

Watching her drive herself to the point of exhaustion, he had been twisted up into equal parts sadness, frustration, desire, and something he was absolutely refusing to label 'love'. He had an image of his future that didn't include alien women who looked like something out of a sci-fi fantasy porn movie. He was going to meet a nice girl who worked in an office or a school maybe; a girl who was pretty in that corn-fed way he was used to from back home. She would be someone he could come home to as if his job didn't require him to be halfway across the galaxy, and they would eat things like beef stew and homemade pie with ice cream.

She wouldn't be someone who knew more about the dangers out here than he did. This wasn't where he thought he would end up. She wasn't what he thought he would end up _wanting._

Later he would blame the fever, which he knew he was running but didn't acknowledge until the world grayed out around the edges.

When he woke up, Vala was sitting next to him with the healing device on her hand. There was pain and fear in her soft gray eyes and something else that was more than either of those emotions buried beneath the surface.

"You look like shit," she said.

"What?" He tried to sit up but the spike of pain through his skull made him collapse back down.

"You were sick," she answered, "I think you may still be sick. I…I'm trying, Mitchell."

"I know. I know you are."

"Can you get up?"

Mitchell tried, for her sake. He got his legs swung around and his torso upright before the dizziness took over again. He felt her hand firm around his forearm, pushing him back.

"Lie down," she said, the bruised look back in her eyes. "I'll get Dr. Lam."

"No, it's fine," Cam insisted. He hadn't worked for months getting his legs back to let a little dizziness stop him now.

He reached for her hand and found it was freezing. He gently tried to chafe the chill away, concerned by the defeat in her eyes. Vala pulled her hand back after a moment and smiled weakly. She took off the healing device, closed her eyes, rolled her shoulders and scrubbed her palms over her face for a moment.

"I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up," she admitted.

"You care about these people," he said quietly.

"I came to, yes. I tried to give them the kind of leadership they understood. It suited their purposes and mine. I…had forgotten."

Cameron put his arm around her, offering comfort, and felt her withdraw. She shivered and he could only think it was with fear. She had walked darker roads than Cameron had ever known existed, and always wound up alone. There was no reason for her to trust the comfort he offered. There was no reason for her to get used to it being there.

It was all right. Cam was patient. He had learned that patience was worth the things he earned in the end. He just had to get her to stay. If she would stay he could give her all the time in the world.

Vala shook him off. Her back straightened and her jaw set, holding her up under the weight of lies and truth and the past.

"Everyone has ghosts," Cameron murmured.

She glanced at him sideways under the heavy fringe of soot-black lashes.

"Do you?" she asked.

Cameron shrugged and gave her a sad smile. "Not like yours," he said.

He managed to stay on his feet for another hour or so before he was burning with fever again.

That time when he collapsed, he didn't wake up until the Prior healed everyone for good. It was a weird thing to be grateful for. That was something General O'Neill hadn't prepared him for – the way 'weird' would become the new normal.

Apparently this whole SGC thing wasn't going to be easy. He wasn't sure why he had assumed it would be.

They ended the mission pretty much the way they had started it. Teal'c and Daniel were in foul moods and Vala was without her treasure. The only one who was different was Cam. His excitement to go off world was gone and he had joined Teal'c and Daniel on the wrong side of pissed off.

He survived the quarantine with Jackson by keeping his head buried in a copy of the latest X-Men graphic novel and mostly keeping his mouth shut. The only time Jackson had seemed alive at all was when he had been talking to his wife. Jillian was a wonderful girl – smart and feisty and beautiful and all the things Daniel deserved. Cameron wasn't jealous of Daniel for having Jillian.

He was jealous because they had each other.

He had sought Vala as soon as they were released from quarantine and found her sprawled like a centerfold across the bed in his quarters. He closed the door with a soft click and hovered uncertainly in the middle of the floor for a moment.

"Well, come on," she said.

Then she was warm and soft and for once silent, one hand sliding down his back and the other clutching his hip. Then they were two naked people lying in the dark touching each other, running hands over chests and shoulders and legs as if they had forgotten the shape of each other. She twisted and writhed under him and when she climaxed it was almost in silence because his mouth was jammed over hers.

Cameron lasted about another minute before he came so hard he had to stop kissing because he forgot how his mouth worked. Stars swam in his vision. His ears rang. He had just enough presence of mind to fall onto his side and gather her into his arms. Vala stretched like a contented cat and then settled down.

"God," Mitchel gasped.

"Mmmm," Vala said, sleepy and sated and for once agreeable.

Cam looked at her in the half-light and thought she was a beautiful still as she was in motion.

"Stay," he said.

He probably meant for the night, in his room. She nodded a little, hair rustling like silk against his shoulder.

"All right," she answered.

He knew she probably didn't mean forever.

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	10. Chapter 10

**Between The Powers That Be and Beachhead. This is a mirror chapter. It also appears in Sunshine and Shadow chapter 212. These stories often overlap. This is more Cam-centric but Midnight and Dawn is his story as well.**

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Cameron had become kind of fond of First Thursdays at O'Malley's, the once-a-month takeover of the bar and grill by the SGC personnel. It was a way of bonding, of starting to fit in. He no longer got the brief flashes of resentment from the men and women on the Base. The resentment had always been softened instantly by the respect he earned over Antarctica. But there was still a wall between him and a lot of the SGC. It was built on the appearance that because he was taking over SG1 he was somehow trying to take the place of Jack O'Neill. His insistence on wanting the original team back together wasn't helping his cause.

No one could take the place of Jack O'Neill and after the weeks Mitchell had been here they had gradually gotten the idea that Mitchell knew that. He had gone on a crusade to get to know everyone on the base, which was easy for him, really. He had a natural affinity for people. He haunted the infirmary. The staff no longer even remarked when he came by at odd hours with donuts and homemade cookies. He sat and ate and swapped stories about home and the SGC, Iraq and Afghanistan with the personnel who were stuck in there, recovering from one thing or another suffered off world.

When he was asked why one night, he said that hospital nights were long and hospital food was awful. He had never forgotten that.

When asked about the Ori and what happened on P8X-412 he didn't pull any punches. He told them the truth – that it hadn't been any kind of picnic and it was probably going to get worse. But he also told them that the people of the SGC had won two wars already by giving it every damned thing they had and that was how they were going to get through this.

It was what he would have needed to hear and he saw it in their faces. Gradually they had stopped thinking of him as a Jack O'Neill wannabe and started seeing Cam Mitchell.

In the end, he learned more about life in the program from those who had been wounded by it than he had from the stacks of SG1 reports he had read from cover to cover.

He thought now it might be time to start reading reports from SG8. Maybe then he could get a handle on Jackson's wife. In some ways she was more enigmatic than Jackson himself, but Cam had discovered that she would talk to him about Daniel. He had a feeling that Daniel was starting to waver in his determination not to join Mitchell on the frontlines again. It was just damned hard to get a read on the guy. He seemed to always have his heart on his sleeve, yet live in a cautious, guarded state all at the same time.

Daniel had closed up tighter than a boot-camp bed sheet when they got back from the plague planet. Cam had shared a quarantined room with Jackson for 24 hours, and while Daniel had been willing to listen, he himself had hardly made a sound. The only time Daniel had been animated at all was talking on the phone with Jillian.

He went looking for Jillian the afternoon of the Thursday after they had gotten back from P8X-412, and found her in the base library. There was an entire section unofficially known as the Jackson Wing, made up of books Daniel had filed and catalogued and put there when he had run out of space in his office. At the moment, the room's only occupant was Jillian.

She smiled when he came in and he registered in some part of his brain how beautiful she was when she smiled – the way she tilted her head slightly to the left and looked straight at a man with those dark green eyes. Cam thought, not for the first time, that Jackson was a lucky man.

"Hi, Cameron," she said. "How are you feeling?"

"Just fine, thanks," he answered. "I was wondering if I could talk to you."

Jillian sat down at the wooden table, which was strewn with papers, notes, pencils, open books and her laptop. She looked like a college student cramming for finals.

"About what?"

"Daniel."

The answer caught her off guard. He saw it in the confused flicker that haunted her eyes for a moment.

"Daniel," she repeated. It wasn't a question. There was hardly any inflection in her voice at all.

"Yeah," Cam sat down across from her and slouched, trying to look less threatening. "I guess I want to ask you the same thing you asked me. Is he all right?"

"As well as can be expected under the circumstances," she answered, hesitantly.

"Circumstances," Cam repeated, trying to draw her out. "You mean the way we left P8X-412?"

"Yes," she said.

Cam sat and waited quietly. Eventually it worked.

"He's shaken up, Cameron," Jillian said.

"Because he couldn't talk them around?" He guessed.

"Not just that," she paused and shuffled some things around on the desk. It looked to Cameron like she was building a line of defense between them, a bulwark against what he was asking. "Daniel has failed to talk his way out of things before. Not every mission ended without shots being fired."

"Like when he rescued the Unas Chaka from slavery?" Cameron asked.

"Yes," she agreed. "But in the past when his peaceful solutions didn't work he would accept the more violent alternative. Now….. now it seems that talking isn't going to work and there is no alternative. Even when talking works now, the people he convinces to reject the Ori will be punished."

"So he's feeling frustrated?" Cam said.

"Yes," Jillian said, "and more, probably. Daniel is…complicated, Cameron. Put a problem in front of him and he'll try to solve it. Put a world in front of him and he'll try to save it. Until those problems are solved and that world is saved, don't get in his way. He's like the tide. You shouldn't try to swim against the tide."

Cameron nodded and stood up. "Thank you. Are you guys coming tonight? To O'Malley's?"

Jillian's nose wrinkled. "We'll have to bring Vala."

Which was exactly what Mitchell was hoping but he didn't say as much. He shrugged instead and tried not to think about Vala with anything but a peripheral awareness. Something about Vala hurt and felt good all at the same time.

"Could be interesting," he commented. "It might wear her out. It would be nice to spend a few hours not listening to her complain about being bored."

"Who listens?" Jillian asked.

Cameron laughed. "Right now she's in her quarters watching season three of 'Star Trek: the Next Generation'. So at least she isn't complaining about anything at the moment."

"'Star Trek: the Next Generation'?"

"She likes it. She thinks we should be working on building a hyperlight drive like theirs and she wants to meet Riker. I think she also wants to get back out into the galaxy to look for dilithium."

"She knows this is fiction?"

Cameron shrugged. "I tried to explain that."

"It will be hard to get clearance for her to leave the base for something like First Thursday," Jillian pointed out. "They'll be worried about her going AWOL."

"But you'd like to get Daniel out of here for a while," Cameron finished the thought for her. When it came to her feelings for Daniel, Jillian wasn't as opaque as she was about other things.

"Yes, I would."

"And she wants to get out of here too. It might make her act for once like something other than a colossal, epic, huge, alien pain in the ass."

Jillian laughed. "You never know."

He grinned back at her, feeling almost as if they'd made a connection. It helped him stop thinking about Vala, about what she might wear if he could take her to O'Malley's and if she would dance with him.

"I'll go see about getting her cleared," Mitchell said.

She stopped him before he walked out the door.

"Cameron?"

"Yes?"

"I'm very glad you didn't die," she said, sincerely.

It touched him for some reason. It was almost like something she would say to one of Daniel's real teammates.

"Thanks," he said.

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	11. Chapter 11

**This is set during the SGC's First Thursday tradition at O'Malley's. This chapter is also being posted as Chapter 214 in my Sunshine and Shadow series as the events are running simultaneously. It is posted here for the Cam/Vala shippers who don't want to slog through S & S. ;-)  
**

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Cameron was perched on the edge of the horseshoe-shaped bench with a glass of beer in front of him and Scott Lawrence next to him. Annie was next to Scotty, wedged in between her boyfriend and Teal'c. Across from Cam were Daniel and Jillian. Jackson was slouched back, with one hand on a sweating glass of beer and one arm slung all the way around Jillian so that his other hand was linked with hers. Daniel had placed Jillian between himself and Teal'c. Mitchell had a feeling that had been on purpose.

Teal'c was once again the designated driver but Cam hadn't seen Jackson take so much as three swallows all night, in spite of the fact that they were on their fourth pitcher of beer.

The occupants of his side of the horseshoe had changed on an almost regular rotation over an hour and half – sometimes Rusty Davidson and his vivacious wife Diane, sometimes Colonel Mallory, who was considering retirement and uncertain how many more First Thursdays he would be attending. Personnel from Daniel's staff cycled through briefly. Some of the men and women who had bonded with Cam during the long nights in the infirmary came to hang out with him. It went a long way to making him feel a lot less like 'the new guy'. He remembered all their names. Names, he had discovered, were important. They wanted to know that the man leading their most important team knew who they all were.

Never mind that their most important team still didn't exist.

Teal'c, Daniel and Jillian hadn't really moved all night. Mitchell hadn't really expected Teal'c to move. He had a way of taking a place and owning it. Jillian looked tired and unwilling to leave Daniel's side.

Jackson was just slightly shut down. He had gone through the motions of polite banter when his staff had visited their booth. He was attentive to Jillian's team mates when they addressed something to him. But mostly he just sat with his arm around Jillian, adjusting it when she moved. His other hand stayed on the glass of beer, his long fingers running up and down to make tracks in the moisture forming on the sides. Mitchell had watched him with sidelong glances, waiting for him to give something away. He didn't know what it was that he wanted Jackson to give away, just _something._

Cam understood now that everything he read in the mission reports had only left him with more questions when faced with the reality of the people who had lived them.

Mitchell wanted to talk to Jillian but the opportunity didn't present itself until Jillian asked her husband to get her an herbal iced tea. Daniel was out of the booth in a shot. At the same time Scotty and Annie decided to go start up the karaoke again. Mitchell got up so they could shimmy out of the booth.

As soon as they were gone Mitchell leaned forward immediately so he didn't have to yell over the noise in the bar.

"Is he all right?" Cam asked.

Jillian looked startled and Teal'c stirred, just the slightest shifting of his muscles and a perceived straightening of his spine. But it was enough to say that Teal'c was suddenly alert and Cam realized that maybe he didn't have the right to ask such a thing.

But, damn it, team or not, they had all just been through hell together and if he couldn't talk to Daniel he at least wanted to find out what was going on.

"With all that's happened?" Jillian finally said, slowly, "No I'm not sure any of us are all right. I…"

She paused and looked away, as if breaking eye contact somehow gave her privacy. When she looked back Cam had the feeling it was only because she had made a decision about how much to share with him.

"I asked him to take me home," she said, flatly, "It was wonderful while we were there. Then we had to leave again, and…well, he's been in a mood ever since. I think that while he was still on the base it was easy to stay focused on work. Home reminded him of everything we have at stake. I caught him leaning in the doorway to the baby's room. It's nowhere near ready but…" She shrugged a little. "I think we just really wanted to stay home."

_And they couldn't because I wanted to bring Vala here, _Cam thought.

Inside he gave a long heavy sigh. Yep, it was beginning to look like he couldn't see all the sides of an issue and that was something he had never considered before. He looked around the dimly lit bar until he found her. She was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and a black turtleneck sweater borrowed from Jillian. Nearly every inch of her was covered and it was still impossible not to see exactly how her body was put together. Vala was obviously sexy and she knew it. It was almost campy at times, and overdone, but her affectations were more charming than off-putting (at least for Cam). Part of her sexiness was the overstated way she flaunted it.

There was a tight yearning in his chest suddenly that he couldn't fight and couldn't process. He was courting her and he knew it. He had been raised in a world where men were taught to court women, even the ones they slept with, especially the ones they married.

Vala was making the rounds, flirting with the men at the pool table with a wide smile and a-cat-who-finally-got-the-cream expression. As if she could feel him watching, Vala suddenly looked up and there was something almost warm and affectionate in her gaze, underneath her usual wary expression. Cam wrenched his eyes away.

"We don't have to stay long," he said to Jillian.

Jillian was also looking at him as was Teal'c. Not exactly looking maybe, more like assessing. He wondered if they knew about the feeling in his chest. Either eight years in the SGC gave people the ability to read minds, or his poker face wasn't what he thought it was.

Then Jillian smiled a little sadly and Mitchell was sure his heart would break from it. He had never seen anyone look so fragile.

"But Daniel and I still won't be going home. We'll all be going back to the mountain."

There wasn't anything he could say about that and he wasn't even sure why it made him feel guilty. He'd had nothing to do with the bracelets or the circumstances that still bound Vala to Daniel.

"It is not your fault, Cameron Mitchell," Teal'c said, and there was that damned SGC sixth sense again.

"I know," Cameron said tightly.

Then suddenly Vala was beside him, leaning over to pick up his glass of beer. She downed what was left in a single gulp and flashed a brilliant smile at him. Mitchell suspected she was little drunk. She was leaning on him heavily and then she nuzzled into his hair for a moment before standing up.

"Buy me a drink," she said, grasping his forearm in both her hands and pulling.

"I just did," he grumbled. But he got to his feet. "I'll get you a Coke."

"You are not fun," she pouted.

Mitchell rolled his eyes. Just as Daniel was returning with a glass of clear amber liquid with ice and a sprig of peppermint, Cam and Vala were leaving the table. The men made eye contact but in the dimly lit room and with Jackson's eyes hidden behind the reflection in his glasses, Cam wasn't sure what the conversation was.

"We'll be at the bar," he said.

Taking Vala's elbow he steered her through the crowd, holding her possessively at his side. Vala could flirt all she wanted but he fully intended to be the one sharing her room that night. In the meantime, they had just caught a glimpse of the new war that was coming. They were going to be fighting and bleeding and dying in the defense of Earth again. For the moment they deserved a little fun.

"Were you serious about the Coke?" Vala asked.

"Yes," Cameron answered, "But we can put a little rum in it too."

"What's rum?"

"You'll find out."

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	12. Chapter 12

Mitchell was still at the bar listening to the barkeeper explaining the finer points of rum to Vala. She was leaning forward, practically halfway across the polished mahogany surface of the bar, chin resting on her curled fingers with a look of studied fascination on her face. The barkeeper – whose name badge said "Kip", of all things – was young, handsome, no doubt one of the students from the University of Colorado and flirting with Vala with all the brashness of youth and good looks. Cameron knew she wasn't flirting back to make him jealous. She was flirting back because it was the most natural thing in the world to her.

Poor Kip was way in over his head, Cam knew. If Vala wanted to go home with anyone tonight it was probably still Daniel. Cam had never been able to shake the idea that he was somehow always going to be her second choice.

But she was happy with him at the moment, having gotten more to drink and having it put on his tab. Cam was about to ask her to go dance with him when there was a sudden commotion in the crowded room. It was the same kind of awed hush and then eruption of murmurs and sounds of elation that happened when the lights dimmed just before a rock star came on stage, or when a beloved basketball star hung in the air before scoring two points. It was wonder and awe and joy rippling through every soul in the building.

Turning in the same direction as every other head, Cam quickly saw why. Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter had just walked in, with a pretty young woman walking between them as if that was where she belonged. It took Cam only a second to realize it must be Cassandra Fraiser.

On a side note, Mitchell found himself thinking that the total alien count in the room had just gone up to three. That they knew of, anyway.

But immediately he was aware of Vala tensing up next to him. Her first – and last – meeting with Jack O'Neill had not gone well. It hadn't helped that none of her tricks or flirtations worked with him. It didn't help now that her connection to Daniel had still not been severed. Cam suspected she was the only person in the room less than thrilled by O'Neill's sudden presence.

"I think I need to go to the little girls' room," Vala said, slipping off the barstool.

"Oh, no you don't," Cam said, grabbing her upper arm in an iron grip. "There's a window in there."

"Is there?" she asked, brightly.

Cam frowned at her. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To say howdy," Cam answered, steering her forcefully back to the table.

Vala tried digging her heels in but he propelled her forward anyway.

"Oh, now wait, Mitchell…Cam! I really don't think this is such a great idea…"

Something in her voice made him stop. She was seriously panicked, eyes wide.

"Can't we just dance?" she asked, but there was something _off_ in the winning smile she attempted. She moved her hand up to trail her fingers over his cheek and he shivered a little. "Please?"

She was so used to being told, "no;" so used to being ordered around here on Earth by people who really had no right to be ordering her around. She was so used to being denied that she was begging before he got a chance to formulate an answer.

All right, fine. A glance at the table showed the legendary SG1 happily engaged in a reunion that was all hugs and smiles. It looked private in spite of being in the middle of a crowded room. Daniel was fussing over Cassie Fraiser and whatever that was about, Cameron had never been part of it.

And Cam didn't want to be one more person pushing Vala to do something she didn't want to do. He had seen her pushed further than she could handle when they had broken the connection to the Ori galaxy and she had collapsed in tears against his chest. He never wanted to see that again.

"Okay, we'll dance," Cameron heard himself say.

Her face broke into an expression of satisfaction and joy – a smirk really, the infuriating one that he always wanted to wipe off her face one way or the other. On the good days it didn't involve strangling her.

And then Cameron thought about how Vala looked in his arms when it was just the two of them and she wasn't smirking at all.

And he knew he was in so much trouble, because he wanted that again. He wanted that as much as he could get it, as often as she'd let him.

For as long as she'd let him.

Defeated, Cameron let her drag him onto the dance floor.

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	13. Chapter 13

_Vala, _Cassie thought. It was an abrupt name, blunt and unyielding but somehow flowing off the tongue effortlessly. A contradiction. Maybe a bit like the woman herself, currently seated across from her in the horseshoe booth. Vala was clinging a bit too possessively to Colonel Cameron Mitchell, sprawled up against him like a cat in sunshine.

Like Cassie was interested in a guy almost twice her age. Yeah he was hot; handsome, even, in a kind of home-bred country-boy rugged way. But Cassie knew what this guy did for a living and she worried about enough people who went through the Stargate. Sometimes they didn't come back. Daniel had gone away for a long time and everyone thought he would be gone forever. Then her mother – the second person to claim that title – had died and she was really gone forever. Then Jack had disappeared for a while and no one would tell her what had happened except that he wasn't dead. He was just away for a while and, no, they didn't know for how long but she shouldn't worry about it; as if that had made her freak out less.

So there weren't any guys who worked at the SGC that would really interest Cassie.

Besides, Mitchell was treating her with a deference that Cassie knew came from the unspoken understanding that she was under Jack O'Neill's protection. She got the same thing from everyone who had ever worked under the mountain. No one wanted to mess with General O'Neill. No one really wanted to mess with any of SG1. Everyone avoided eye contact with Teal'c if it was possible, especially if he was with Cassie. Daniel seemed like the mildest human being in existence until someone crossed him or threatened something – someone – he loved.

Her 'guardians' took the word 'guard' much too seriously.

Cassie wrenched her thoughts away. It was the kind of thinking that made her head hurt and made her feel like a prisoner. She focused on Vala for some reason; maybe because she was the most outrageous person she had ever met.

For no reason that she could think of Cassie suddenly heard herself blurt out, "Did you really just try to escape out the bathroom window?"

Vala paused in whatever she had been saying to Mitchell, blinked in Cassie's general direction and said, "Out the vent in the ceiling, actually. I was nearly out when Teal'c came in and grabbed my ankle." She swiveled her head in Teal'c's direction and said, "You do understand the concept of _ladies'_ room. Yes?"

"I do," Teal'c replied shortly.

Vala pouted and trailed her fingers down Teal'c's impressive forearm. "I don't understand why all of you insist on keeping me a prisoner. I haven't done anything wrong–"

Mitchell cut her off with a snort of laughter.

"Why are you a prisoner?" Cassie asked, startled. She had thought Vala was Cameron's date, which is why she had been so confused to hear Vala mentioned as being 'connected' to Daniel. At the time she had ignored it. Daniel didn't look like he was in any danger.

It was Mitchell who answered, "Vala isn't exactly from around here."

Cassie gaped for a moment. "You're an alien? Extraterrestrial?"

Cassie had met other aliens over the course of her time on Earth. There was a support group for people who had been displaced from their own home worlds and sought refuge here. But she had never met an alien quite like Vala.

"Yes," Vala said, reaching for the glass in front of her and taking a drink, "in that I'm not from Earth. I came through the Stargate."

"Me too," Cassie said almost reluctantly. She didn't know that she wanted to have anything in common with the strikingly beautiful woman who seemed to command the attention of every man in the room. She took a breath and went on, "They don't like us to wander around too much on our own. Apparently we're a _huge_ security risk."

Vala leaned forward, smiling in a way that was too bright to be genuine. "What was your planet like?" she asked.

Cassie floundered for a moment. She didn't remember it all that well. "It was small, at least my part of it was." Even she didn't know if that meant geographically or significantly.

"Have you ever been back?" Vala asked.

"I was never given the choice," Cassie said, realizing that for the first time and wondering if she wanted to go back. Suddenly she didn't like being under Vala's scrutiny. "What about you?"

"What about me what?" Vala asked.

"What was your world like?" Cassie asked.

Vala appeared to consider the question. "It was hot in the summer, humid, and cold in the winter."

"Hanka was primitive," Cassie said, "at least by SGC standards. Have you ever gone back? To your home planet?"

"Oh, that ship left orbit ages ago," Vala said, sitting back, leaning against Cameron and studying her fingernails for a moment. Then she sat up again rather abruptly. She put a hand on Cameron's arm and pushed. "I think we need more pretzels. Let's go get some," she said, shoving him out of the booth.

"Fine," Cameron grumbled.

"Great!" Vala said, cheerfully.

"Cassie? Do you want anything?" Mitchell asked.

He seemed reluctant to leave her in the booth alone.

"No, I'm fine," she said tightly. It wasn't like _she_ was suddenly going to try escaping out the ceiling vent.

Mitchell nodded and then let Vala drag him off in the direction of the bar. When they were almost there he heard that ripple of excitement that preceded the arrival of SG1. Turning his head he found that, sure enough, they had walked back into O'Malley's and were heading for the booth. The people of the SGC who managed a friendly takeover of O'Malley's on the first Thursday of every month drew up with such an air of wonder and respect they might as well be at military attention.

No wonder Vala had wanted pretzels so suddenly. She had been successfully avoiding Jack O'Neill all night. Of course, the General treated Vala like a live explosive that was likely to go off at any moment, watching her with an expression that mixed wary with 'not-at-all-amused.'

Mitchell understood her reluctance to confront the General. He oscillated between being awed by Jack O'Neill and borderline terrified of him.

Mitchell stopped walking abruptly and made her stop before they got to the bar.

"Dance with me again," he said. "Pretzels will just make you thirsty and you've had enough."

Her eyes were on him, darker than usual and unfathomable. "All right," she said finally, and let him lead her onto the dance floor.

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He had danced with her before when the music had been grinding and fast and that had been bad enough but at least they hadn't really been touching. Now they were dancing to Scotty and Annie singing _I'd Love You To Want Me_, which somehow wasn't as cheesy as the Lobo version. It was also easier to dance to, and Mitchell was painfully aware of the words for the first time in his life.

Vala's body was pressed close to his, as if she was hoping to hide inside him. His hands wandered too close to places that were publicly forbidden. Her voice in his ear got too close to making those sounds that would drive him wild. Under the pretense of resting her head on his shoulder she bit down lightly on the skin below his ear, suckling a little. He heard the smugness in her soft laughter as his body responded. She tilted her face up to his and he had to resist kissing her with all of his strength. Then she put one foot between both of his and ground down on his thigh.

He knew where this was headed but it wasn't going to happen on the dance floor. He slipped his hands down to her hips and pushed her away from him a little. In return he got the feigned pout and the knowing gleam in her eyes.

"You want me," she hissed into his ear in a breathy whisper.

"Of course I want you. I'm a guy, I'm breathing and I'm straight," Mitchell answered.

She frowned and pressed forward against him again. "Actually, darling, you're going off on a bit of an angle. That can't be comfortable in those jeans."

"That's not what I meant!" Cameron protested. "I'm straight. I like girls, not other guys."

"You don't like other guys at all?" For gods' sake she didn't have to sound so disappointed. "Oh." She looked like she was considering that as something just learned and never considered. Then she smiled brightly and said, "Not that it matters. We should leave. Go to your place."

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Cameron said.

"Why not?"

"There's too many ways you can escape from my place," He said and he got a hurt frown as a response. "We'd have to go back to the base. Are you ready to go now?"

She bit her lip and looked hesitant.

"Look," Mitchell said, "Jackson is going to want to take Jillian home any minute. They've only been here this long because of whatever is going on with Cassandra Fraiser. If we leave now, it's on your terms."

It was a guess at what would motivate her, a hunch, a shot in the dark. He found that he did that a lot with Vala. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it backfired.

This time it worked. Vala liked having life on her terms.

"All right," she relented.

The song drifted to an end and they disentangled from each other. Taking her by the elbow they went back to the table to tell everyone they were leaving.

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	14. Chapter 14

On the way back to the base, Vala decided she was hungry so he took her to the drive-thru at Burger King. They got Whoppers and fries, Cokes, a chocolate milkshake and Oreo pies. He had discovered that when it came to food, she would try anything once, a lot like Daniel Jackson.

Cam winced and forced his thoughts away from 'Vala and Daniel' in way, shape or form. He didn't want them to have anything in common, even though he knew it was ridiculous. He shouldn't be jealous of something that had no chance of ever happening. He shouldn't be jealous because Vala was exactly what he did _not_ need anyway.

Well, maybe he needed her in some ways. After what he had just been through, everything since Vala had walked through the Stargate had confirmed that he was still living. Right now he was knee-deep in his dream job, caught in the web of a mysterious alien he wasn't sure he trusted and unable to walk away from either. He was still an outsider in so many ways at the SGC, still trying to find the place where he fit and it hit him as he took the freeway exit for the base that so was Vala. It hit him hard. For all her forced vibrancy, flippant sexuality and pain-in-the-ass troublemaking, she was alone too.

Was that all they were, then? Two lonely people who had bumped into each other and had nothing better to do? Who was she really with when it seemed like she was with him?

Her hair had fallen forward while she sampled her milkshake and he had to clench his hands around the wheel of the Mustang, fighting the urge to reach over and brush it back over her shoulder. He fixed his eyes on the road until they got to the parking lot. There was a single shuttle waiting to take them to the Main Gate. It would be busy all night, when the rest of the SGC came staggering home from First Thursday. He was glad suddenly that they had left early. He parked the Mustang under a misty cone of light and shut off the engine.

Vala started gathering trash and the bags full of food they hadn't eaten. Cam reached over and grabbed her wrist. Her skin was silky, clean and smooth. Her pulse was strong and steady.

"Vala." His voice was whispery soft. His next words were as risky as a strafing run through enemy airspace. "Don't close your eyes tonight. Look me in the eye. Let it just be me."

Vala froze but her mouth curved slightly.

"Who do you think it's been, Mitchell? Daniel? Did I accidently yell his name or something?"

Cam slammed up hard against the denial – ironically an anagram of Jackson's first name.

"You don't yell," he managed to drawl. "You just make helpless little fucked-out-of-your-mind noises."

Vala snorted and tried to go back to sorting the food from the trash. But Cam didn't let her go.

"Daniel can't fit me into any of his neat little boxes," she said. "He wants to find out I had a tortured childhood or something."

"Did you have a tortured childhood?" he tried to ask casually.

Raven-winged brows drew closer together. "My childhood is my own business and none of yours, or Daniel's for that matter."

"Fair enough," Cam said, carefully. He had no wish to drive her away.

She resumed the blithe tone of voice he thought she must have spent years perfecting. "Maybe I do what I do because I was the host of a Goa'uld. I'd think that would make Daniel happy, but it's too easy an answer for him to accept."

"He forgives what you do because of that," Cameron observed.

Vala lifted an eyebrow. "Really?"

"What did you think? You push him, you torment him. You get his dander up in ways I don't think anyone else would dare, and you're still walking around in one piece. But Jackson can be laser-focused when he wants something. If he wants to save you from yourself, you might want to reconsider how hard you go at him."

Vala leaned forward, her hair a dark curtain around her face, obscuring her features and adding to the intimacy of the dimly-lit front seat.

"Daniel doesn't understand how easy it is to make him crazy, or how much fun."

"Like I said, Jackson can be relentless in his pursuit of something. If you're his latest project, I'd be a little more wary."

"Sometimes a girl wants to be saved," she said, and then her voice dropped to something husky, sexy, "and sometimes a girl wants something else entirely."

Cameron felt a shiver of relief. At least he wasn't playing this game alone.

"What is it you want?" he asked, leaning forward until his mouth was barely inches from hers.

"Independence, security."

"Aren't they mutually exclusive?"

She shrugged, smiled. Her breath grazed his face and tasted of chocolate.

"Not always," she said, "I manage."

"Takes a lot, I bet." He let go of her wrist but she didn't move away. His hand touched her face, her neck, slipped over her shoulders and down until it hovered beside the swell of her breast beneath the turtleneck. "Brains, talent, courage…"

"Flattery will get you everything," Vala answered.

Cam's breath hitched as the two of them hovered in that moment that always felt to him like the seconds just before the push to break the pull of gravity. She cut off his thoughts abruptly.

"Are we going to do this in the Mustang? Backseat is a little cramped."

"No," he answered.

"Why not? Don't all fighter pilots live to break the rules? Live fast and die young?"

"Live fast, maybe. I sure don't want to die young."

To shut her up Cameron kissed her. She tasted of ice cream and he was reminded of hot, humid Kansas summer nights in spite of the Colorado autumn on the other side of the glass.

They parted and stayed still for another moment. Vala kissed his cheek, his jaw, his neck and it was so vibrant he began to shake in response. Then she curled her fingers into his shirt and tugged him forward.

"What do you want tonight?" Her voice was husky, filled with promise.

"I told you," his was barely audible, softer than a breeze. "I want to know that it's me, not just some fantasy."

Vala pulled him closer and just before she kissed him she said, "I can do that. It's never been anyone else. Now take me to bed."

_Or lose me forever,_ Cameron thought bitterly. Then she sealed her lips over his and he gave up the ability to think.

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	15. Chapter 15

**Tag and Missing scene for Beachhead. This will pause Vala and Mitchell's storyline for a short time. My Muse is writing three stories in SG1 series order.**

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The Super Gate came apart like broken Lego construction, spinning off into pieces. There was a moment of joy and celebration that Cameron shared in. Then he felt the icy cold prick of dread in the center of his heart.

"Did Vala make it back?" He heard Daniel utter the words that he couldn't get past the sudden ache in his throat.

He heard the negative response, registered it as something he was going to have to deal with eventually and then tried to shove it into a place so deep he wouldn't have to think about it for a long long time.

Then Daniel started to fall, grabbing the back of a chair in an attempt to stop the plunge to the floor.

On the way to the sickbay, Mitchell couldn't help but wonder why it was Jackson who had collapsed, when he was the one whose world had just been hollowed out.

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Her loss went through him like a fine needle through cloth. Everything he felt was stitched with it. Even his gratitude about Jackson's survival, which had looked iffy there for a short time, was colored by the immediacy of knowing she was no longer there.

Sam's revelation that Vala might still be alive, albeit trapped in the Ori galaxy, gave him a small glimmer of hope. He was glad the others seemed to be just as relieved, even Sam who hadn't known her very long.

Neither one of them had really signed up for more than sex, more than grappling, hot and sweaty, lust and release and escape into temporary oblivion. He had gotten more in spite of that and he hoped she had too. Moments of quiet and protection, peace and grace. He had been falling in love with Vala when they were together. He didn't think that was going to stop now that they were apart.

"She was right, you know," he said softly.

Jackson turned his head slightly. He squinted but Cameron suspected it had more to do with the lack of eye glasses than curiosity. Jackson was beating himself up for not stopping Vala, or thinking of her plan and instigating it himself.

Sam lifted both elegant eyebrows. Teal'c regarded him balefully.

"Vala," he forced her name out. If he closed his eyes he could still see her smirking at him, assessing him with those cool grey eyes. He could still feel the weight of her body settling into his, the way his quiet, affectionate gestures had shut her down at first. Vala hadn't known how to be comforting in bed. She only knew how to be strong and stoic and he had taken it upon himself to teach her differently. "She was right. She told us not to listen to Nerus and we did. We did everything he wanted us to do. He played us like fish and the only one who knew it was Vala."

Sam shook her head vehemently. "He just brought us the information. We would have done the exact same thing without his urging. If he had told us to do something else – and I am not even sure what else we _could_ have done – we still would have used the Mark IX."

"Are you sure?" Mitchell asked. He trusted Sam in a way he had yet to trust anyone else at the SGC.

"It's why we developed it. It had been sidelined for a long time and then it was given to me as a possible defense against the Ori," she told him.

"And now?"

Sam shrugged, looking like a scientist who had just made a new discovery that was completely contrary to her hypothesis.

"I don't know," she said. Then she smiled at him, a little sadly but a lot like the friend she had always been to him. "But we'll stop the Ori. We'll find a way."

He didn't ask how because this was _Sam. _He had known her since the Academy, and they'd both been in Kuwait in 1991 when they were still kids. Two desert wars and leave time spent in small desert towns, complaining about sand in their bunks and distance from loved ones. He had tried his damndest to talk her out of her engagement to Jonas Hanson. The man hadn't been nearly good enough for her. Cam had kept her out all night once, playing pool (he could never beat her) and getting her drunk on beer and shots and making her talk about Jonas. Four days later Sam had given Jonas back his ring. Cam had always hoped that he'd had something to do with that brilliant decision on her part.

Her inability to tell him anything about the Stargate program, about what she was doing, about why she was serving under Special Forces Officer Colonel Jack O'Neill doing _deep space telemetry_ of all freaking things had unsettled their friendship for a while. He understood about security clearance but there was no way that Colonel O'Neill – the man who ran through Desert Storm like a wrecking ball of military efficiency – was babysitting a bunch of scientists in Colorado.

Sam had gotten him into the 302 program. He owed her _big time_ because the X-302 was just the best toy _ever. _Even saving her life didn't seem like big enough payback.

She hadn't been back very long, but there was very little that Sam Carter didn't notice. If she knew about his feelings for Vala, so far she'd had the good sense not to say anything or try to talk him out of it.

The next thing she said confirmed his suspicions. "We'll get her back, Cam. You have to believe that."

She didn't say it to Daniel. She said it to him, to Cameron. Looking into Sam's eyes Mitchell let himself feel hope for the first time in many hours.

_Stay alive, Vala. _He sent the thought through time and space to a woman who might be in another galaxy hiding from a powerful enemy. _Just stay alive and we'll – __**I'll**__ – find you._

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